The present invention is directed to medical devices, systems, and methods, particularly for those which employ cold for treatment of pain in a patient. Embodiments of the invention include cryogenic cooling needles that can be advanced through skin or other tissues to inhibit neural transmission of pain signals. Other embodiments may inhibit muscle spasm induced pain. The cooling may be applied so that the pain-inhibiting remodeling relies on mechanisms other than ablation.
Therapeutic treatment of chronic or acute pain is among the most common reasons patients seek medical care. Chronic pain may be particularly disabling, and the cumulative economic impact of chronic pain is huge. A large portion of the population that is over the age of 65 may suffer from any of a variety of health issues which can predispose them to chronic or acute pain. An even greater portion of the nursing home population may suffer from chronic pain.
Current treatments for chronic pain may include pharmaceutical analgesics and electrical neurostimulation. While both these techniques may provide some level of relief, they can have significant drawbacks. For example, pharmaceuticals may have a wide range of systemic side effects, including gastrointestinal bleeding, interactions with other drugs, and the like. Opioid analgesics can be addictive, and may also of themselves be debilitating. The analgesic effects provided by pharmaceuticals may be relatively transient, making them cost-prohibitive for the aging population that suffers from chronic pain. While neurostimulators may be useful for specific applications, they generally involve surgical implantation, an expensive which carries its own risks, side effects, contraindications, on-going maintenance issues, and the like.
Neurolysis is a technique for treating pain in which a nerve is damaged so that it can no longer transmit pain signals. The use of neurotoxins (such as botulinum toxin or BOTOX®) for neurolysis has received some support. Unfortunately, significant volumes of toxins may be used on a regular basis for effective neurolysis, and such use of toxins can have significant disadvantages. Alternative neurolysis techniques may involve the use of thermal injury to the nerves via the application of radiofrequency (“RF”) energy to achieve ablation, cryoablation, or the like. While several of these alternative neurolysis approaches may avoid systemic effects and/or prevent damage, additional improvements to neurolysis techniques would be desirable.
In general, it would be advantageous to provide improved devices, systems, and methods for management of chronic and/or acute pain. Such improved techniques may avoid or decrease the systemic effects of toxin-based neurolysis and pharmaceutical approaches, while decreasing the invasiveness and/or collateral tissue damage of at least some known pain treatment techniques.